Alpha-Beta or another "thank you + feedback" thread

[chp]

Hi.

According to alpha.txt of 0.57, its days are over (turns to beta ;) and soon it might be sort of late for second part of "thank you, here ideas that might be useful" threads.

So, here it is. Thank you very much for 2xExplorer! It was (is and maybe will be:) very straightforward and handy tool!! True love at first sight :)

Hopefully his bigger brother Xplorer^2 will inherit his best merits and success. It's already almost twice as featured as 2xE! But here are some new (or OLD :) features, ideas or feedback for existing ones that might be useful:

Bugs:
- Ctrl+O - should use active pane, not only left one
- Shift + mouse-wheel scroll acts like shift-select + open (feature?)

Missing features (from 2xE):
- Ctrl+E - when in single pane mode opens+equals second pane (New: if single pane + quickview = equals them)
- Left / Right cursor keys for pane switching ARE really missing :~(( It's very Handy! (new: option to work even in non-details views would be nice)
- Layouts (handy - switch two panes <> single+quickview, different detals/thumbnails etc)
- Optional different title color for active pane (blue background, white path symbols?), instead of "non-shaded" (shading is a bit slow on old puters)

Mods:
- Tab (more common!) instead of F1 to auto-complete path in command line
- Command line should lose focus only on Esc, Enter & Shift+Tab or Ctrl+Tab (latter two work now. But how many long command lines were lost because of hitting Tab two times?! No more, hopefully)
- (Super)Find - more handy to have Size and Modified/Created (Comment, Type as well?) fields/options in main window. Gets disabled if same type "Additional rule" is used.

Adds:
- Quickview top/bottom placement maybe (useful for text and pics+thumbs)
- Toggle mode option for Locating in Tree (why it isn't always on?)
- Toggle mode option for showing subfolder(s) size
- Status bar. List selected item(s) for BOTH panes (handy, more easy to compare)
- Option to start copy/move/etc as separate process with its icon / status in taskbar (and alt+tab)
- Option "run only one instance of x2" (too many of them in taskbar with auto-hide feature ;)
- Hotkeys for View/Pane Styles
- Hotkey for closing Scrap window (different from closing x2. Ctrl+W is most common, so Ctrl+Tab to switch between x2/scrap windows and Shift+Tab to switch between command line and active pane)

Misc:
- Custom pane separator (#) for titlebar
- List all shortkeys in help/readme. And maybe you'll decide to reconsider some in favor of usability and expand-ability along the way ;)

That's about it.. (forgot something, but I'll add later).

Again, thanks and have fun!

Anatoly Y

PS Sorry for my Eng

[eivind]

Some very good suggestions here, but I have to disagree with this one:

- Left / Right cursor keys for pane switching ARE really missing :~(( It's very Handy! (new: option to work even in non-details views would be nice)

I don't miss this. In fact, coming from other Norton Commander-like file managers, I found the use of left/right cursor keys confusing.

Nikos; maybe there could be an option to "turn it off" if you choose to add this?

[PieterS]

I'm eagerly awaiting the non-alpha build... I promise to use the Donation button on the homepage once the 1.0 is out

The last (two?) builds have however resulted in a small annoyance: shift-enter on a file (not a folder) results in an empty scrap frame. I have to open a lot of MS Access-files, and if you want to skip the startup code within, you have to start them with shift-enter, but that combination is now "stolen" by x2... Now I have to train myself in pressing enter, *VERY* quickly followed by shift; that's not quite as easy as it sounds

[chp]

2 eivind
What left-right cursors were used in NC for (detailed view)?

Right now, there are only and lonely way to switch panes -> TAB. Single key, leftmost part of keyboard!

So, left hand must be there almost all the time, just to serve all those panes switches! When in 2xExplorer you could fly within AND between panes with U/D/L/R cursors, home/end.. having your left hand on F5/F6 or holding cup of tea.

Sure, there are hidden reefs for most new features people want. In case of left-right cursors it's function intersection with horizontal scrolling. But options/ workarounds are possible (use of ctrl+left/right).

[nikos]

left/right keys use in 2x were an accident which i didn't particularly like
if you are in any other view style (list, large icons etc) these arrow keys are required to navigate the contents of each pane

[chp]

Small corrections / additions to my original post.

Corrections:
- TAB as auto-complete suggestion turn out to has one of those "hidden reefs". F5/F6 and alike dialogs with path can't have it, because TAB is used to jump around, including to/from path/urls/etc.

- Shift+M.wheel is not x2's fault. It's same for MSExplorer.

Missing:
- Option / reg-hack to set file extension for F7 (what we need empty files for? To create .txt most of times ;)

New:
- Status bar: separate for both panes, with detailed or/and customized info. File/selection - size, dates, attributes, comments, whatever. Option to show drive's free space too.
Some would want to configure & see them all, for example while browsing thumbnails in single-pane mode. Some would like to configure to Comments only. Layouts should save these settings, so it would be very handy to switch between very different "modes".
Just like now, status bar would toggle to command description while browsing main-menus.

- Option / reg-hack to switch Ctrl/non-Ctrl behaviour for F5/F6

- Option / reg-hack to set rooted folder (just like /R)

- Option to configure middl-mouse button click (open/rename/send to scrap/etc)

- Maybe now it's possible to make an intelligent replacemet for old $ > command prompts* ? Get rid of them actually. How difficult it is to see difference (or do an additional check) between \\path c:\folder and (global / local) command (still to be stored in different recent/history)?

- Auto-resize colums (toggle) feature

- We've got advanced find and "advanced mark by rule". How about advanced visual filter?

Maybe something will be found useful.
Have fun :)


* "In order to differentiate command execution from normal addressing, 2xExplorer interprets as commands inputs that begin with '$' or '>' characters"

[eivind]

2 eivind
What for left-right cursors were used in NC (detailed view)?

None (that I can remember), and that's just my point; it was confusing with 2xExplorer when I accidentally hit Left/Right and suddenly was working in "wrong" pane.

Right now, there are only and lonely way to switch panes -> TAB. Single key, on leftmost part of keyboard!
Left hand must be there almost all the time, just to serve all those panes switches! When in 2xExplorer you could fly within AND between panes with U/D/L/R cursors, home/end.. having your left hand on F5/F6 or holding cup of tea.

I see what you mean, and you have a good point. But as I probably work differently, I don't see this as a problem.

So IMO if Left/Right cursor keys should switch panes, I would like to have an on/off option or a reg hack to turn it off.

[mimeryme]

- Shift+M.wheel is not x2's fault. It's same for MSExplorer.

I didn't even know of this until it was brought up in this thread, but a fix would be nice.

Missing:
- Option / reg-hack to set file extension for F7 (what we need empty files for? To create .txt most of times
- Layouts!! At least five of them.

I disagree on the need for an extension. In Explorer, I would always create a new TXT file though I didn't want to, but always found it tedious to rename after the creation of the file. The other way around is much easier. It's not so hard to type in ".txt" or whatever extension you want.

As for layouts, it's already there. Set the layout as you would like it and under the Window menu entry, select 'Set registry key...,' type in a name for the layout and you're done. The layout can be accessed via the Window menu or even with a parameter in a shortcut. I believe all the pertinent info is in the alpha.txt

New:
- Status bar: separate for both panes, with detailed or/and customized info. File/selection - size, dates, attributes, comments, whatever. Option to show drive's free space too.
Some would want to configure & see them all, for example while browsing thumbnails in single-pane mode. Some would like to configure to Comments only. Layouts should save these settings, so it would be very handy to switch between very different "modes".
Just like now, status bar would toggle to command description while browsing main-menus.

This is interesting as configurability would be useful. Ordering of the display would be useful as well. So, the status items perhaps can be called by variables. (Something like: %freespace% | %total_files% , %directory_name% [%modified_date%]). However, I'm not sold on the idea for separate status bars for each pane. As this would limit the space available for useful info on the status bar.

- Option / reg-hack to switch Ctrl/non-Ctrl behaviour for F5/F6

I guess this can be useful, but what about just defaulting the focused item to be the OK button. So, the spacebar can be used as well to quickly have the transfer be made should you choose to transfer from one pane to the other and had forgot to hold Ctrl.

- Option / reg-hack to set rooted folder (just like /R)

I don't quite get the meaning here. Isn't this already available? If you wanted to always start with the same two pane locations, you can disable 'Save Settings' under the Actions menu entry.

- Auto-resize colums (toggle) feature + reg-hack to set maximum symbols for filename column (manual resize ignors reg-hack)

I, personally, like the way it is now, but I see how it can be useful for certain layouts.

[chp]

2 eivind:

So IMO if Left/Right cursor keys should switch panes, I would like to have an on/off option or a reg hack to turn it off.

Nevermind. Looks like there are too many problems with it, and too few people were using it.
So I'd better start becoming more "mouse-compatible" (switching, selecting, ctr+shift+drag-dropping etc) I could do something with a hot-key tool, but it'd be on my comp only.. while I prefer bring x2 everywhere (all comp at work :)

Talking about NC-habits. What * was used for then, can you remember?

SELECTION
* - select all (in addition to Ctrl+A... both work in toggle mode, so no need in Alt+A)
/ - invert selection
. - sticky selection

BROWSING
Ctrl+Backspace - Root (used more)
Shift+Backspace - System root (desktop)

[jimspoon]

One keyboard behavior I'd like to see changed is Ctrl+Space - now it shows Free Space in the status bar.

But I was in the habit of selecting non-contiguous files by holding down Ctrl and pressing space on each file I wanted to select.

Now to select non-continugous files with the keyboard, I have to release Ctrl before pressing Space or Ins. Then press Ctrl again when moving the focus, so that I don't lose the selection when I move the focus. Either that, or use sticky mode.

[eivind]

2 eivind:

Nevermind. Looks like there are too many problems with it, and too few people were using it.
So I'd better start becoming more "mouse-compatible" (switching, selecting, ctr+shift+drag-dropping etc) I could do something with a hot-key tool, but it'd be on my comp only.. while I prefer bring x2 everywhere (all comp at work

I don't mean to run down your suggestions. All I'm saying is that I'd like to have an option to turn it off.
Nikos is the one to decide...

Talking about NC-habits. What * was used for then, can you remember?

Sorry... You lost me here. Could you rephrase, please?

SELECTION
* - select all (in addition to Ctrl+A... both work in toggle mode, so no need in Alt+A)
/ - invert selection
. - sticky selection

BROWSING
Ctrl+Backspace - Root (used more)
Shift+Backspace - System root (desktop)

I don't remember these, but then again - it's been a long time and I guess I wasn't a "hard core" NC-user. I used "Del" instead of "F8" for example.

I disagree on the need for an extension. In Explorer, I would always create a new TXT file though I didn't want to, but always found it tedious to rename after the creation of the file. The other way around is much easier. It's not so hard to type in ".txt" or whatever extension you want.

I second that. Even though it is usually .txt ("chp" is probably right about that), I appreciate that I don't have to rename the file after creation when it's not a .txt-file.

One keyboard behavior I'd like to see changed is Ctrl+Space - now it shows Free Space in the status bar.

But I was in the habit of selecting non-contiguous files by holding down Ctrl and pressing space on each file I wanted to select.

I agree. I did it the same way. The "Sticky selection" is ok, but not as comfortable (for me) as CTRL+Space.

[nikos]

i'll change the free space shortcut to C+A+space

[eivind]

i'll change the free space shortcut to C+A+space

I guess C+A is CTRL+ALT? (letter C + letter A + Space would be a little awkward IMO... )

Appreciate it, Nikos. Thanks.

[TKC]

Helllo, nikos
I think the X2 have most functions I need for regular day_to_day work. Thanks !! .

If it is not too difficult, could you please add the print treeview function in it? (WYSIWYG)

I like to way of "select group (Gray +)" in the 2X (which has 3 options to select). I am sure the options will be there in the beta version, but just like to make it certain. I mistakely deleted a big dirctory once, since the selection of X2 is "add items to current selection"

Best Regards.

TKC

[nikos]

that's why i always recommend leaving the delete confirmation dialog on (from recyclebin properties)